The Syrian government announced last week that a Greek-Italian consortium had begun works on a new power plant in Deir Ali near Damascus, in what is likely the largest ongoing engineering project in the country, although how it plans to pay for it remains a mystery.

A British oil company that has rights over oil fields located in northeast Syria has said that production at these fields has increased significantly since the beginning of the year although it receives no revenues from them.

Ayman Asfari, one of Syria’s wealthiest individuals, has reportedly bought a significant stake in a company with significant oil assets in Syria and which includes among its other shareholders one of the regime's most powerful business tycoons.

Three years after the Syrian air force began bombing its own towns, the EU has decided to ban jet fuel and additives exports to Syria because “they are being used for indiscriminate air attacks against civilians.”

Syria’s stock market index fell by 1.69 percent this week, its steepest weekly decline in three months in the wake of EU sanctions on the Central Bank of Syria and a continued deterioration in the political and economic environments.

Updated February 13: The European Union plans to impose new economic sanctions on Syria threatening to reduce further the Government’s foreign currency earnings and the country’s links with the outside world as diplomatic pressure piles on Damascus.

Updated February 6: Gulfsands Petroleum has said that drilling operations in the Khurbet East 102 well had encountered oil and gas with total recoverable reserves estimated at around 19.2 million barrels of oil equivalent and that it would now stop all activities in Syria.

Mehran Khwanda, the main shareholder and head of the Khwanda Group, has announced his resignation from the board of directors of Bank of Syria and Overseas, following his inclusion in a blacklist issued by the European Union last week.

Mehran Khwanda, the main shareholder and head of the Khwanda Group, has announced his resignation from the board of directors of Bank of Syria and Overseas, following his inclusion in a blacklist issued by the European Union last week.

An estimated 1.2 million protestors took to the streets across Syria on Friday July 22 - the largest turnout ever since the unrest began on March 15. Earlier in the week in a significant diplomatic blow, the Embassy of Qatar in Damascus closed and its Ambassador abandoned his post. Meanwhile, the heavy crackdown against the opposition in Homs continued throughout the week.

After two weeks of comparative calm amid weeks of acute turmoil, Friday saw a resurgence of extreme violence with the death-toll from the day's after-prayers protests reportedly reaching as high as 44.